Burglary in Brooklyn
Vandalized and burglarized are words I'm getting used to saying lately. I call the "evidence team" in North Brooklyn and explain that Detective Barbee (pronounced like the children's doll) gave me their number to follow up on a burglary that happened in my apartment. JG joked that when the detective showed up at my place, he could be as hot as Christopher Meloni on Law & Order. I don't catch his reference but after the six or so police officers that have stepped into my messy apartment in the last hour, I don't have high hopes for some eye candy. The woman on the phone keeps referring to the perpetrator as "perp" and it disturbs me. "Wear gloves in your apartment and put everything you think the perp touched and leave it on the side for us to analyze," she says. She has a thick Brooklyn accent and the office seems as chaotic as any crime television show I have ever watched. And I haven't seen many. Not even one episode of CSI or SUV (or is it SVU?). I don't even know what those acronyms stand for I'm so out of the crime loop. I have watched Dexter though and as professional as they may seem, I feel as if I'm just getting stock quotes from some television script while this lady speaks to me. Perp this and perp that. I almost feel part of a fictional crime drama; as if she is using lingo only she shares with her other colleagues. But this is not fiction. This is my life and I need to take my fingers off the pause button. Her feigned interest in my burglary is making me nauseous and compared to all the "shootings in North Brooklyn," my burglarized apartment is certainly not on the top of the list. I just want to get this over with so I can go back to my apartment, pack up all of my things and move out. Coincidentally my year lease was up at the end of the month anyway. I was going to linger here in Fort Greene for a few months after the lease was up until I found another place to live, but now that my apartment was broken into and all my electronics stolen, I think I should leave immediately. Especially if they patch up the ceiling the "perp" broke through via some old unused skylight on the roof because the same thing could happen again. I am also almost ninety percent sure it was a shady character who lives on the first floor of my apartment building. Detective Barbee shows up and he's very attractive, just as JG said he would be. He's well versed in crime dramas. Later on he tells me that most detectives become detectives because of their superior skills and physical superiority. Detective Barbee went on crime drama tangents I could only imagine happened on only network television shows. It was really sexy. While Detective Barbee talked to me, his partner was canvassing my entire building. I heard him talking to "Teardrop" (my friends nicknamed him that because of the tear tattoo on his face) who lives across the hall. "I don't speak English," I hear Teardrop say. And I know that's a complete lie, because I have had conversations with him. We used to talk about our dogs and he would always have my back. He would let me know if my keys were left in the lock, that my car window was rolled down. He was neighborly in the good way. Not nosey, just aware. I liked him and liked his dog he would walk without a leash even more. "Skinny was spotted around here," Detective Barbee's partner says from outside my open apartment door. Detective Barbee explains who "Skinny" is and he's known for burglaries like these. Supposedly Detective Barbee has been trying to pin him down but he's a smart "perp" who knows what he's doing. Detective Barbee also tells me that they put away Skinny's cousin a few years ago and Skinny is not happy about it. I don't want Detective Barbee to leave. He makes me feel safe. He takes photographs of the hole in my ceiling and the perfect footprint on my couch the perp stood on to reach into the top of my closet. Clothes are thrown everywhere. A bottle of tequila is left open, spilled all over my bed. The debris from the ceiling is all over my kitchen floor. Cabinet doors are all open. The microwave and toaster were thrown off the top of the refrigerator. My 56" flat-screen television is gone. Along with my PlayStation, Bose speakers, iMac and other things. I realize that my Jack Spade messenger bag is still on my couch, I guess the perp doesn't have an affinity for fashion. That bag was expensive. During the canvasing we learn that someone reported to my landlord that my apartment door was wide open at 2am. A German lady I've never seen before said she heard something around 1:30am but thought it was someone on the roof smoking a cigarette. The perpetrator who broke into my apartment knew I worked overnights. They knew I broke up with my boyfriend months ago. They also knew I no longer had a dog to guard my belongings. The perp also knew I had "expensive" things to steal. With all of this knowledge I realize the only person who knows all of these things is the acting "mayor" of the my building in 1A. A shifty character that attempts to befriend everyone. He caught me once around two in the morning with a friend, telling us his life story. How he's been shot, and how he's "universal" and doesn't past judgment on anyone anymore. After his near death experience he wants to change his life around. We joked about me penning his memoir one day. During that unwanted 2am conversation he also said, "No one wants to fuck with me. I can break into any apartment in this building." He also got very aggressive when I said I was tired and wanted to walk up to my apartment. As we're standing in the foyer of the building, he pulls out a gum wrapper and takes a bump of cocaine. He offers us some and we politely decline. Each time I initiate a good bye he says, "What am I boring you? Look at me! I've got all my hair. Look at me!" It's creepily aggressive. I'm drunk, he's fucked up. Just days before my apartment was broken into he buzzed my buzzer and asked if he could come up and grab the DVDs I borrowed from him. I didn't want to borrow said DVDs but that night he forced them on me. You know what these DVDs were? Porn! Straight porn at that. I didn't want them. He was just so aggressive about me taking them that the only way I could get away from him was to take them. So, I invite him into my apartment while I grab his DVDs. He mentions how sweet my TV is and that his son just got his PlayStation back from GameStop who had just fixed it. He asks me where Cooper is and I tell him the ex took him back. This is the same ex that has asked him to help him up on the fire escape to get into the apartment quite a few times when he forgot his keys. I guess neighbors really do know your business if you like it or not. My landlord waited around for the police with me. He's Italian and super sexy. I find out he owns the pizza place up the street I go to at least once a week. Little Louie's. Then I find out his brother owns the Italian restaurant Graziella's I ordered take-out from once. This family is getting my money left and right. "What happened in your apartment is out of a movie or some shit," he says referring to the hole the perp had to squeeze through in the ceiling. I agree and my stomach is in knots. My apartment no longer feels like my home. It feels tainted, used, abused. I will no longer feel safe here. I'm stopping by my apartment for the first time since Wednesday tomorrow. I'm going to clean up a bit and start packing things into boxes. My life in Fort Greene is coming to a dramatic close. I'll miss my studio. But I think I need to start somewhere new. This time I won't have crazy boyfriends who befriend shady characters. I'll have motion-sensor cameras and one of those deadbolt locks that lock from the inside and out, so the perp can't get in or out the door. Case closed.
